Month: September 2017

Source: Cisco
While my day-to-day job is focused on helping our customers transform their business, what I’m about to share with you has nothing to do with making the numbers. Yet, it highlights one of the great honors of being in this role and why I love being part of Cisco. Recently, Cisco had the opportunity to […]Cisco Spark Connects John Legend to Music Apprentices

Source: Cisco
As our premise is that 5G is greater than simply a new radio technology, it requires a transformation of the entire network and business. So what kind of services can we expect in the near future from 5G? Deliver 5G services today – at the speed of “CLICK”

Greetings fellow IT professionals! After more than 20 years of TechEd in the late spring and early summer, Microsoft will give us Microsoft Ignite (formerly TechEd) in the fall from Sept. 25 – 29, 2017 in beautiful Orlando, Florida. I am so excited to get together with 10,000 of my closest IT friends at the Orange County Convention Center and talk about the amazing emerging technologies and innovations that will change the shape of our world for the foreseeable future. The event promises to be exceptional! The Veeam Team will be there, as a Platinum sponsor, showcasing our industry disruptive solutions for Availability. If you want to see a great demonstration of Veeam and Microsoft technologies, then stop by booth #601. We know Ignite is all about technology so we will bring our systems engineers to answer your questions and really give you the technical details and demonstrations you want. If you happen to be a business manager, seller or executive, take a moment to stop by our booth and set up a one-on-one with our executive team and let us help you build a stronger relationship with Veeam.

Our R&D Team continues to release game-changing innovations. At Ignite, we will focus on our Veeam for the Microsoft Cloud innovations, designed to help enterprises of all sizes ensure Availability for virtual, physical and cloud-based workloads — eliminating complexity and simplifying business continuity between the HQ data center and the Microsoft Cloud. Stop by our booth for a demo of our NEW Veeam Recovery to Microsoft Azure which combines the unique functionality of Veeam PN for Microsoft Azure and Veeam Restore to Microsoft Azure delivering on-demand recovery of your Veeam-powered backups in Azure, and extending your recovery options through our easy-to-install site-to-site networking solution.

You might be interested in the following cool technology demonstrations on how to:

Enable business continuity with our NEW Veeam Recovery to Microsoft Azure offering

Build a long-term Azure archive for your Veeam backups

Recover on-premises Exchange, SharePoint, Active Directory or SQL Server in two minutes or less

Back up and recover on-premises physical servers using Veeam Restore to Microsoft Azure

Back up Microsoft Office 365 to an on-premises datastore

In addition to all our technology demonstrations, you will want to attend one of the many breakout sessions we are sponsoring from Resilient, cost effective backup and disaster recovery with Azure Blob storage to Backup strategies for your Office 365 environment and Windows or Linux computers and many more. Check out our Microsoft Ignite page to see the entire listing of our Veeam sponsored breakout sessions, and make sure to sign up for the Veeam party and register to join our Veeam Super User Group! And don’t forget to sign up for all the awesome FREE prizes and giveaways.

Source: Cisco
I’m a numbers guy. So, it really got my attention when I learned that businesses which make diversity and inclusion a priority do better than others. In fact, U.S. companies in the top quartile for gender diversity have 15 percent higher financial performance than the national industry median. And for ethnic diversity the difference is […]Why Promoting Diversity Is Not Only the Right Thing to Do—It’s Also Good Business

Here at Veeam, we understand how important your data is and how it can affect your organization if it’s unavailable. The link between IT systems and the success of each business, no matter the industry, is undoubtable. Unexpected disruptions come in many shapes and forms, from human error, to malicious attacks, to fire, floods or natural disasters. Having a strong Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery (BCDR) plan can prove vital.

But there is more to Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery than meets the eye. BC Planning can help you analyze your infrastructure and detect the threats and weaknesses long before any disaster may occur, while DR reduces stress of the unpredictable and helps you, as well as your organization, become more proactive and open to change and improvement.

But what does a strong and efficient BCDR plan look like?

Veeam and Conversational Geek joined again and published a mini-series to help IT professionals better understand and easily apply BCDR planning in their day-to-day job. The guides are written in a conversational tone that makes it fun and easy to understand basic principles such as: Mapping IT systems to business function, setting clear RTOs and RPOs and splitting applications into tiers based on how critical they are to the business, create a backup & recovery strategy, adopt the right technology to meet goals.

The mini-series offers a good starting point to Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery planning for Health Care, Higher Education and Financial Services.

Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery for Health Care

For Health Care institutions, the link between technology and patient care leaves no room for mistakes. Physicians and hospital staff make important decisions based on up-do-date patient information, so a solid BCDR plan is imperative in these organizations. Conversational Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery for Health Care provides best practices and key considerations for creating a solid BCDR plan in a Health Care institution including: Regulatory requirements for patient information, SLAs for each level of applications and documenting your BCDR plan.

Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery for Higher Education

In Higher Education nearly any loss of service will have a major impact on a school’s ability to function: Registration, on-premises learning management systems and the usual suspects like directory services, email, print services, etc. Should one of the elements fail, it can cause a chain reaction that could seriously affect many users. From the Conversational Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery for Higher Education e-book you can get practical tips for a trustful BCDR plan from defining the tiers of apps and services, to testing your plan.

Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery for Financial Services

Financial Services companies require 24.7.365 Availability and increased attention to security and integrity. IT admins in banks, insurance companies, credit unions etc. are working under the pressure of providing non-stop continuity and defending their data against cyber criminals, while meeting heavy data regulations. Not an easy job, is it? Conversational Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery for Finance e-book provides practical BCDR guidelines for IT professionals working in financial services, including the use of the 3-2-1 backup golden rule and a mix of virtual environment, modern backup & recovery solutions for a powerful IT strategy.

To sum up, I believe this series shows that BCDR planning doesn’t have to be a burden, if it’s done the right way. If you don’t find yourself working in one of the above verticals, don’t worry! The main principles of a rock solid BCDR plan work for organizations within any industry or vertical. So to build a business continuity and disaster recovery plan that you are confident in, make sure to respect the following steps: Evaluating the criticality of each application, identifying what technology is needed to achieve defined RTPOs, documenting and testing your plan.

If you were considering becoming a cybercriminal or were perhaps a traditional villain looking to upgrade your skills for the 21st century, I’m sure your business model of choice would be running a ransomware operation. You would, thanks to the simplicity of platforms like Ransomware as a Service and the willingness of victims to pay ransomware fees, be running a very successful business — albeit an illegal business — in a matter of days or weeks. Such is the ongoing success of ransomware as a means of extorting money from victims.

The main reason for the runaway success of ransomware as a malware attack vector is its effectiveness and ability to generate money for cybercriminals. Anonymous payment services like Bitcoin make ransomware payment simple for victims and risk free for the ransomware’s owners. Companies are even starting to keep a Bitcoin ransom ready in the event that they are affected and cannot recover from the attack.

Bitcoin isn’t the only ransomware payment method available. Cybercriminals offer flexibility when it comes to settling your bill. Early ransomware and Lockerware (the old screen-locking style of malware) were primitive in terms of demanding payment: Premium rate SMS message extortion was common, as was the use of the now defunct Ukash voucher scheme. Today, Bitcoin remains the most popular payment method, but other cryptocurrencies like the more sophisticated Ethereum and less well known Litecoin and Dogecoin are also options. The latter two currencies trail behind Bitcoin in terms of transactions, but all of these cryptocurrencies can be easily laundered through the darknet, allowing the cashing out of funds easily and anonymously.

Recent research carried out by Google, Chainalysis, UC San Diego and the NYU Tandon School of Engineering found that ransomware has generated an income of more than $25 million over the last two years. Looking at 34 different types of ransomware and then tracking their ransomware payment methods through blockchain ledger entries, they were able to track and analyze the flow of Bitcoin ransom paid by victims. One of the most successful variants of ransomware is Locky, which is said to have earned its owners over $7 million.

If you’ve ever been affected by ransomware, you know the ransom demanded to gain access to your data is generally quite small. On average, the ransom is around $700, although it peaks at about $1,500. This low-pricing strategy is designed to make sure you can afford to pay the ransom rather than seeking likely more expensive recovery alternatives. Paying the ransom is designed by the malware authors to be the easiest option for you on purpose, so they can maximize their profits. There is solid economic theory here: Price elasticity of demand for one, but also the notion that low price, low input and high volume will be an easier payday for the ransomware owner over the higher priced and potentially higher risk alternative.

Reports of ransomware being able to alter its price based on the geographic location of the victim’s computer back up the economics of ransomware too. The Fatboy Ransomware as a Service platform is said to use The Economist’s Big Mac index to offer its victims an affordable way out of their predicament. The Big Mac index measures the differences in purchasing-power parity between global currencies to adjust the price of a burger. It is now utilized by ransomware authors to ensure that wherever their malware strikes, the price you see to regain access to your data is within your means relative to your location and currency.

It is important to note that we also see the price of ransomware set deliberately high in certain market segments, usually where there is a significant risk of not acting on the outcome of the attack. Hospitals, for example, have noted higher ransom payment demands when key or life-critical medical systems are affected. The morals of these ransomware attackers are clearly non-existent.

Paying the ransom, whether it’s by Bitcoin or another method, is always going to appear to be the easiest way out of the problem, but it’s never a guarantee that you’ll be able to resume normal operations. Firstly, the ransomware is unlikely to decrypt all of your data. You should expect about 80% of it back at most. Secondly, the ransomware is still resident on your system and could lead to further breaches or problems. And thirdly, understand that by paying the ransom, you are effectively negotiating with terrorists and helping to fund the darkest, most sinister parts of human nature, such as terrorism, human trafficking, money laundering, drug running, prostitution and every type of criminal activity.

Of course, I understand that there may be times when you have no backup or no means of recovery from a ransomware attack, so you may have no choice but to pay the ransom. In enterprise environments, however, you have a choice and, therefore, no excuse. DO NOT PAY the ransom. Instead, rely on your protection and preparedness.

Source: Cisco
As consumer demand grows for higher quality, more personalized video experiences, so too does the pressure on our networks to keep up. At IBC, we’re introducing Video Aware Networking, and it will shift the future of video networks.IBC 2017 And The Yin-Yang of Video-Aware Networking